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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25928101">Mothers and Fathers</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/allvilelysunk/pseuds/allvilelysunk'>allvilelysunk</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Avatar: Legend of Korra, Avatar: The Last Airbender</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Childbirth, Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, Pregnancy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 04:41:35</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,195</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25928101</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/allvilelysunk/pseuds/allvilelysunk</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Crown Princess Izumi has news for her father.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Izumi &amp; Zuko (Avatar), Mai/Zuko (Avatar)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>200</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Mothers and Fathers</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Princess Izumi stood before the closed door to her father’s office and took a deep, steadying breath, the kind that could precede a powerful bout of firebending or a particularly courageous act.</p><p>Internally, she acknowledged how foolish her mounting nerves were. She was very much a grown woman now, not the comparatively inexperienced young adult she’d been when she became pregnant with Iroh fifteen years ago. And, unlike Iroh, this little one was planned; Izumi and Hanzei, her husband, had been trying for months now. Naturally, she would learn that their efforts had been successful while both Hanzei <em> and </em> her mother were away on official business—and perhaps she ought to wait for them to return so she could tell the two of them and her father all together, but she felt as if she would burst if she didn’t tell <em> someone </em> right away, and her father was right there.</p><p>So, there she found herself, her knuckles hovering just shy of the door, poised to knock. However, the opportunity to knock at all was quickly stolen from her by an incoming servant, who pulled open the door from the inside to reveal the crown princess of the Fire Nation.</p><p>“Your Highness!” the servant exclaimed, her head dropping into a bow and her hands forming a salute.</p><p>Izumi mirrored the bow and salute in kind, effortlessly schooling her face into an impenetrable mask of grace and dignity. “Ichika,” addressed Izumi, and she stepped aside to allow the servant through the threshold just as Ichika did the same. Izumi chuckled under her breath, motioning for Ichika to go first. “No, don’t let me stand in your way. Have a good evening.”</p><p>Ichika lowered her head again, this time with gratitude, and did as her princess asked. “Thank you, Princess. You have a good evening as well.” With that, the servant was off, holding a circular tray that had delivered dinner to the perpetually overworked Fire Lord.</p><p>“Izumi?” came the slightly weary voice of said overworked Fire Lord from within the office.</p><p>“Yes, it’s me,” Izumi confirmed. She stepped quietly into the room, her sharp features instantaneously cast in warm firelight, and closed the door behind her. She approached the chair in which her father sat at the far end of the spacious room, laying a comforting hand on his shoulder as she peered at the mountain of scrolls littering his desk.</p><p>She grimaced empathetically. “You should have told me how backed up you were. Let me help.”</p><p>“I won’t bother telling you no,” Fire Lord Zuko replied, resting his hand on top of hers. “Your mind is already made up.”</p><p>“You know me so well.” Izumi winked and snatched up as many scrolls as she could carry before her father could take an unreasonably large share for himself. Zuko made a high-pitched noise in protest, but couldn’t find it within himself to physically wrestle some of the scrolls from her grip like usual.</p><p>Izumi lowered herself onto an armchair opposite her father, the scrolls spilling onto her lap. In a fluid, confidently elegant motion, she unrolled the scroll at the top of her pile and immediately scoffed.</p><p>“The council is <em> still </em> fighting you on educational reforms?”</p><p>Zuko sighed raspily. “Believe it or not, Izumi, it’s not unlike pulling teeth to make reforms to a nation steeped in nearly two centuries of supremacist ideology,” was his sardonic retort.</p><p>Izumi hummed. Already, her nerves were somewhat soothed by she and her father’s sarcastic banter. “One would think they’d take the hint after this long,” she returned flatly, a flawless recreation of her mother’s dry wit. “You have half a mind to incinerate them where they stand.”</p><p>“If only,” grumbled Zuko with mock wistfulness, as if he hadn’t done everything in his considerable power to leave the days of tyrannical, warmongering Fire Lords and mindless obeisance in their nation’s past.</p><p>Izumi’s piercing glare flicked back to her scroll as she began to read in silence. To her rising chagrin, she internalized only a fraction of the words on the page no matter how many times she went back and reread. It seemed that her destiny tonight wasn’t to set aside the reason she came here in favor of tedious work.</p><p>She assumed her father had been reading as well, so she was visibly surprised to pull her gaze from her scroll and find him staring directly at her. His work was untouched on his desk.</p><p>Their eyes met, and Fire Lord Zuko began to stroke his beard.</p><p>Princess Izumi sighed. No use in waiting any longer. “I’m pregnant, Father.”</p><p>His eyebrow shot up. “Really?”</p><p>“Yes, I’m quite sure.” She smirked faintly. “I’ll have to radio Aunt Katara soon. She’ll never forgive me if I don’t involve her.” With that revelation finally behind her, Izumi’s posture relaxed and she rolled her scroll back up. For now, the time for work had passed.</p><p>“Does Hanzei know?”</p><p>“No, he left with Mom before I was certain. You’re the first person I’ve told.”</p><p>Zuko beamed at that. “Finally, your mother and I are even.”</p><p>Izumi groaned. “Will you ever let that go?”</p><p>“Now I can. And, you know, I think I’ve been very diplomatic about her finding out about Iroh before me, all things considered.” Zuko lowered his hand from his beard and crossed his arms triumphantly.</p><p>“Would you wipe that shit-eating grin off your face and hug me already?”</p><p>What could only be described as a righteous cackle spilled from Zuko’s lips as he stood up, crossed the short stretch of space between them, and gathered up his daughter into a fierce embrace. If he closed his eyes, he could imagine that she was still a small girl with scrapes on her knees and bramble in her hair, but as desperately as he missed the halcyon days of Izumi’s youth, he was filled to bursting with pride for the woman she had become: a shrewd and well-respected princess, a renowned historian, a master firebender, a loving wife, a tender but firm mother. He could hardly fathom how he’d managed so well with her, the way he’d felt as if he were a komodo chicken with its head cut off as he blundered his way through fatherhood. Nightmares of branding his beautiful, innocent daughter’s face the same way his father had his own plagued him during the early years of Izumi’s life, but he hadn’t dreamt such terrible things in over a decade. Once crippling fears of becoming Ozai had fizzled away into oblivion.</p><p>Zuko eventually drew back from their embrace, but his hands clasped Izumi’s shoulders. Her noble, blessedly unscathed face stared him back. Her brilliant golden eyes shimmered with pools of unshed tears. The same could not be said for his own eyes, from which rivulets of tears had already begun to fall, caught in the grey hairs of his beard.</p><p>“Dad, you’re going to make me cry,” Izumi muttered, her voice quivering faintly. She blinked, and a single tear escaped her eye as if on cue. “Damn it,” she cursed.</p><p>The Fire Lord cupped her jaw in his hand and wiped away her tear with the pad of his thumb. At his gentle touch, the dam broke and her tears flowed freely.</p><p>“If I weren’t so happy, it might be demeaning to become a grandfather for a second time,” snickered Zuko. He pressed a kiss to his daughter’s forehead.</p><p>Izumi quickly transferred her scrolls onto the floor, rose from her seat, and brought her father into another embrace—one that wouldn’t strain his back. Reminded of that aforementioned first grandchild, Izumi’s eyes widened faintly. “Oh—we have to tell Iroh too… I suppose I should wait until Hanzei and Mom return. Maybe we’ll sit them all down together and get it over with at once.”</p><p>“I wonder what he’ll make of this,” Zuko mused.</p><p>Izumi shuddered. At fourteen years old, Iroh was markedly more mature than most of his peers, but a teenager he remained in all the ways that mattered. The implication that his parents had an active sex life would be unpleasant at best for him, and the notion of having a baby sibling at his age would be completely unfamiliar. This sibling would not be one whom he had grown up alongside; by the time they were Iroh’s age, Iroh himself would be a fully grown man, perhaps even with a family of his own.</p><p>“Well… at least Mother has experience with baby siblings. She’ll be able to offer him some wisdom.”</p><p>Zuko hummed his agreement, and Izumi kissed her father’s cheek and flopped back into her chair. When she leaned over to recollect the scrolls strewn about the floor and make some effort at resuming her reading, Zuko discouraged her with a wave of his hand. “Absolutely not. Neither of us are working tonight.”</p><p>Izumi straightened up. “You’ll regret that tomorrow,” she chided.</p><p>“I know,” Zuko agreed resignedly, sinking back into his own chair. He took a moment to wipe the residual tears from his face. “But tonight should be about you. Perhaps I’ll ask your son to help me with these tomorrow…”</p>
<hr/><p>Fire Lord Zuko burst into the room with great haste, huffing like a man who’d leapt off a dragon mid-landing and sprinted most of the length of the palace to the infirmary—which, indeed, he was. He could feel his headpiece coming loose from his topknot, and his eyes were no doubt wild with a churning combination of worry, excitement, remorse, and happiness, but the last thing he cared for at this moment was his image.</p><p>“You just missed the main event, Fire Lord Doofus,” drawled Fire Lady Mai from her daughter’s side, a joyful twinkle in her eyes as her gaze met Zuko’s. Her hand rested on her grandson’s shoulder, but Iroh had eyes only for his reposing mother and the small form nestled gently in her arms.</p><p>The door again opened, this time with less urgency, and Master Katara followed Zuko into the infirmary. “I haven’t seen you run that fast in ages, Zuko,” she observed. Without hesitation, she flitted to the other side of Izumi’s bed, where Hanzei had knelt beside his wife and new daughter. She bent pulsing, glowing water into her hand. “Izumi, do you mind—”</p><p>Izumi glanced up, looking as if she’d been in a deep trance. Her glassy eyes trained on Katara first, then her father. “No, I don’t mind,” she rasped, shaking her head. A smile began to curve her dry lips. “Father, come here. Hold her.”</p><p>Unlike Katara, Zuko did hesitate, his brain working frantically to catch up with his other senses. Eventually, with the eyes of every member of his immediate family upon him, he strode up to Iroh’s side, gave his grandson an awkward smirk for which Mai would tease him relentlessly later, and reached his arms out to carefully cradle the slumbering newborn his daughter passed to him.</p><p>While Katara lifted the silken gown Izumi wore and laid her hand across her lower abdomen, Zuko held his granddaughter close and marveled once again at exactly how small and fragile newborn babies were—especially ones that had the audacity to be born two weeks early while their grandfather was in Republic City. She would never live that one down, he decided.</p><p>“I’m so sorry I couldn’t be here in time, Izumi,” Zuko heard Katara say.</p><p>“There’s nothing to apologize for, Auntie,” Izumi reassured her, too weary to raise her voice above a murmur. “It happened so fast this time. There was nothing you could have done that the midwives weren’t already capable of.”</p><p>Amid the ensuing low chatter, Zuko took it upon himself to memorize the features of his granddaughter’s face. Her milky skin; her already long, black eyelashes; her small, round nose; rosy cheeks; pink lips that he could swear were upturned in a serene, scarcely there smile. With her head balanced in the crook of his arm, he lifted one finger and tenderly brushed it across the tip of her nose, careful not to wake her from the sleep she’d earned.</p><p>Enchanted as he was by the little creature in his arms, he hardly registered Katara saying, “Well, everything seems to be in order.” In a rustle of fabric, Katara readjusted Izumi’s gown and stepped back. “I’m sure you remember the rules. Bedrest for the next seventy two hours, as much skin-to-skin contact with the baby as possible, no sex for the next six weeks at <em> least</em>—”</p><p>Iroh unleashed a humiliated groan that would have made Zuko belly laugh under any other circumstances.</p><p>Katara dutifully ignored him. “And if <em> anything </em> seems off, I’m a call away. I’ll take a look at the baby once your father comes back down to Earth.” Katara bent toward Izumi to kiss her cheek, wrapped Hanzei in a brief but meaningful embrace, offered a maternal smile to both Mai and Iroh, and quietly departed the room.</p><p>“Dad?”</p><p>Zuko looked up. Mai now stood at his side, her arm draped around his waist and her eyes fixed on their granddaughter. He exchanged a fond look with his wife, then met Izumi’s gaze.</p><p>“Yes?”</p><p>“Her name is Mizuki.”</p>
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